


peal

by anaer



Series: staccato [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anger Management, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Can be read alone, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, background Hunter/Wally, you don't need to necessarily read the first one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaer/pseuds/anaer
Summary: Wally can't seem to move past what Hunter did to him. It takes time, of course, but he's never been all too patient.In the aftermath, Wally struggles.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Wally West, Linda Park/Wally West
Series: staccato [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585348
Comments: 26
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The follow-up to my Hunter/Wally fic. That was ostensibly supposed to be a one-off, but as I was writing, I just needed to write what came after. The hurt isn't really as satisfying without the fall out and the comfort, you know? 
> 
> This can more or less be read as a standalone, I think, with the knowledge of what Hunter did rather than actually reading what happened. It's addressed enough in this. 
> 
> Anyway, this grew WAY bigger than I anticipated; it's about 20k right now, but I'm in the middle of the last chapter/epilogue, so I decided to start posting.

I.

"A day," Barry said quietly, not quite meeting Wally's eyes. "He had you just over a day." Wally sighed, turning his head to stare at the wall. He was still blinking the sleep out of his eyes, readjusting. Nothing had stopped hurting yet, but the minor aches had begun to fade as his powers kicked back in. 

There weren't a lot of painkillers that worked well for him – perks of being a speedster – but S.T.A.R. Labs was better equipped than a hospital. He hadn’t even woken up until long after the surgery on his arm was done. 

"Nanites," Tina had explained about his powers when she'd been in here a few minutes ago. "Some sort of future tech designed to soak up your energy - really interesting, actually; we're going to try and reverse engineer them. They weren't necessarily built for your power output, though, so you overloaded about half of them, which is why your powers have been working intermittently. The rest are slowly flushing out – another few hours, I’d say." Wally hadn't been able to look at her. It wasn't usually awkward, his ex-girlfriend and the husband she'd cheated on with him being his primary doctors.

It was awkward when she knew what Hunter had done to him.

Wally's arm itched underneath the cast. Two weeks before it'd be off, and he already couldn't wait. 

"How are you?" Barry's voice was loud through the silence of the room. Wally swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing up and down. How could he even answer that? His jaw quivered, and he had to blink back the water that began to flood his eyes. It was too much to look at Barry, too, another person who knew. Why couldn't he have this one thing to himself, to bury deep down inside of him where he'd never have to think about it?

“It’s okay to not be fine,” Barry said, warmly reassuring, and Wally didn’t know how he’d managed to go all these years with Barry gone - with Barry dead. Barry’s hand hovered awkwardly above where Wally’s rested on the bed, like he wasn’t quite sure if it was okay to touch him or not. 

“I _am_ fine,” Wally bit out, even as they both knew he wasn’t, even as Wally was on the verge of breaking down in tears. He lifted his hand and closed the gap, squeezing Barry’s wrist tight. “What happened?” he asked, voice shaking and barely audible. “With Hu—with Hunter?” He half remembered Barry saying something about it before.

Barry rubbed Wally’s arm reassuringly. “Jay took him back to Iron Heights. He’s being kept under round the clock sedation until they find some way better to hold him." He paused. "If you want to...pursue this. Legally, I mean—”

“What would be the fucking point?” Wally cut him off, laugh bitter. A deep pool of rage bubbled up in the bottom of his stomach, just out of reach. 

“It’s an option,” Barry replied evenly. Always a fucking cop. Wally tried not to hold it against him. He wasn't trained to deal with this.

Wally didn't know how to deal with this.

"He's already in forever; I don't need to go fucking _advertising—_ ," he broke off with a choked sob, shaking his head. "I just need a minute. We bounce back fast, right?" From the frown on Barry's face and the stinging in his own eyes, Wally sensed his weak grin and lame attempt at levity hadn't quite landed for either of them. 

Barry just looked sad, and Wally hated that. "Wally…" Whatever he might have said next was interrupted when his phone buzzed. "Oh.” He glanced up from the phone, the attempt at a reassuring smile still tinged with deep sadness. “Hal is almost here with Linda and the kids." 

Wally blanched. 

_Linda_. He hadn’t—he hadn’t thought...

He shook his head, weak vibrations suddenly wracking through him. He tried to speak, tried to force words out, but all he could manage was a weak, breathless whimper. There was no air in his lungs; they twisted his chest tighter and tighter and tighter. His head was spinning, and Wally must’ve blacked out because he blinked and he was sitting forward, Barry’s arm around his shoulders supporting him. A hand rubbed soothing circles over his back.

“—eathe, Wally. Come on. In,” Barry inhaled, “and out.” Exhale. He repeated it again. Wally nodded, the most acknowledgement he could manage. “You’re doing good,” Barry said, which was shit because Wally wasn’t doing anything. He was only barely managing to pull in any air at all. 

“ _Linda_ ,” he squeezed out, pulling in a shuddering breath. Barry’s hand on his back slowed. 

“She’s fine,” he replied slowly, voice warm with concern. “We were bringing them back down from the Watchtower, remember?” 

Wally shook his head, eyes closed tight. “No.” It was a quiet fear that threatened to choke him, near impossible as it was to voice. “She—does she _know_? What he...what he did.” A pause, and then, “To me.” His voice was barely audible by the time he croaked the last word out. Barry’s hand stopped completely then, a still comforting presence solid against his back.

“Just that he kidnapped you,” Barry said softly, and Wally’s lungs untangled at once, air rushing back in. 

He grabbed Barry’s shirt, twisting the fabric tight in his hand, and turned his head to meet his uncle’s eyes for the first time since he’d woken up. 

“You can’t tell her,” he begged. “P-please, she can’t—don’t tell her. Please, Barry. She _can’t_ know.” Desperation clawed at his throat. Barry and Tina and Jay were bad enough. Linda was everything to him. If she looked at him and saw...if she knew...Wally couldn’t wrap his mind around that, couldn’t get past the panic bordering on irrational at the idea that she might.

Barry wrapped his other arm around him. Wally clung onto him, still shaking. 

“Of course I won’t,” he agreed immediately. “I wouldn’t.” 

Wally let go, his arm falling limply into his lap. “Thank you,” he breathed out. “I just—she doesn’t need that. She worries.” The justifications were lame even to his own ears. He hated how pathetic he felt. 

“I get it,” Barry replied easily. Wally nodded. He swallowed. He could keep himself together. 

“I just feel like,” he began cautiously, breaking off every two words, “it wasn’t…that bad? I mean, it…it hurt, yeah, but lots of things hurt. Breaking my arm hurt. So she…she doesn’t need to know the details, right? I’ll be fine. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You just had a panic attack, Kid.” The old nickname snapped Wally’s mind clear through the fog. It caught Barry off guard, too, easy as it had slipped out. Wally very firmly pushed Barry away, fixing him with a disapproving glare, even as Barry laughed a little sheepishly. 

“Sorry; force of habit,” he apologised at the same time Wally snapped out, “Don’t call me that.” This wasn’t the first time Barry had slipped up since coming back – it was to be expected, really – but this was the first time it prompted an immediate flash of contempt. He didn’t have the energy to examine why.

“I’m not your kid sidekick anymore. I’ve not been for years. I’m a grown man! I’m not _helpless_ ,” he spat out, and Barry raised his hands defensively.

“I never said you were. I know you’re not.”

“I’m the Flash!” he shouted, punching the bed with his good hand. Barry looked lost as to how to respond, but Wally was too upset to give him a moment to step in anyway. “This doesn’t _happen_ to the Flash! This never happened to _you!”_ His cheeks were wet, chest heaving. Wally dropped back down to the bed, the fight gone out of him all at once. He stared at the wall, back of his head to Barry. His voice was quiet again, watery with shedding tears: “Why me?” His shoulders shook, and he bit his lip against the tears. 

Barry rested a hand on his shoulder to comfort him again. Wally slapped it away. “It wasn’t that _bad_ ,” he repeated desperately, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. “I’m better than this.” He was better than the abject failure Hunter had forced on him. He was better than letting it turn him into a snivelling mess. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I saved Jai,” he reminded himself. That was all that mattered in the end. “I _beat_ him.”

He opened his eyes and looked back at Barry, choosing not to notice the heartbroken look painted over his uncle’s face. “I’m sorry,” he apologised, aiming for another half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m a pathetic mess. I’ll be okay; I promise.” He was falling apart at the seams.

“You have _nothing_ to apologise for. And don’t say that about yourself; you’re not pathetic. You’re the strongest person I know.” Wally blinked back the rush of tears that threatened to break free. His face was wet enough already.

“Did you forget you know Superman?” 

Barry ignored the glib remark. “None of this was your fault.” It was the right thing to say, but also the last thing Wally wanted to hear. 

The door slammed open. Wally flinched, a sudden surge of panic rolling through him that rolled out of him almost immediately when he saw who it was that zipped in. He plastered on the best smile he could.

“Dad!” Irey squealed, and Barry was around the bed and scooping her up before the seven-year-old could try and dive bomb Wally in the hospital bed. 

“Not so fast, kiddo,” he said. “Your dad’s still healing; take it slow.” 

Irey nodded her acquiescence, eyes wide as she said, “I know!” as impatiently as Wally used to. “I was just gonna hug him.” She frowned, glancing to Wally, taking in the cast and sling on his arm, and then back up at Barry. “That’s okay, right?”

“Of course it is,” Wally answered, and he almost even sounded normal. “That’s exactly what I need to feel better right now, Irey.” Barry deposited her onto the bed, and it took everything inside Wally to keep himself from crying again as he squeezed her to him, remembering how close he’d come to not having either of them thanks to Hunter, too. Hunter really did try to take everything from him.

Linda walked in five seconds later, carrying a sleeping Jai in her arms. He was almost too big for that now. The sight lifted a weight off his chest, one he hadn’t realised was still there, and Wally’s smile was genuine. The tears leaking out of his eyes again were happy, too. It was one thing to hear it: it was another to see it. 

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey yourself,” Linda returned, but the relief in her voice was as palpable as the relief in his chest. 

“He okay?”

Linda nodded. “Mostly. A bit shaken up. He was inconsolable for a while; didn’t calm down until word came through that you were fine. He fell asleep on the way over.” She paused, then asked, "Are _you_ okay?" 

“Jai said you were gonna die,” Irey piped in unhelpfully. A knot grew in Wally’s throat. He smiled reassuringly at her.

“I’m all good, Irey. Promise.” He looked back at Linda, then over to Barry who was watching the scene with an inscrutable expression on his face. “Worst I’ve got is a broken arm.” Barry’s eyes tightened around the corners, and he mumbled an excuse about Iris to duck out.

Wally swallowed and did his best to tell himself that was the truth. 


	2. Chapter 2

II.

Wally woke in a cold sweat, heart pounding into his throat. He pulled in a shaky breath, swallowing down the tears that threatened to leak out. He tried to move, but his body was frozen: suspended in space, trapped between the seconds. 

No, he realised a moment later. He was just moving slower than his mind was processing. Feet swung over the side of the bed to land on the floor, and Wally pulled himself up. Short sobs broke through the silence. He stayed perched on the end of the bed, shoulders shaking badly as he tried to keep quiet. 

_Breathe_ , Barry would say if he were here. Wally tried to, but the nightmare stayed with him. His arm ached sympathetically underneath the cast. He could still feel it like it'd just been broken. He could still feel Hunter's hands on him, could still feel…Wally dropped his face into his hand. Wet again. Predictably. 

Linda stirred on the bed behind him. He wiped his face and turned to look at her. 

"'Ally?" she asked, raising her head to blink blearily at him. "Wha's wrong?" 

A quick kiss planted on her cheek, hair brushed off her forehead with a finger. "Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep." His voice shook, but Linda was too asleep to notice. She nodded and turned back over, breathing evening back out before too long. At least one of them could sleep, he thought forlornly. 

A sideways glance at the clock sent his heart racing again. Two hours since he’d come to bed: two hours since he’d seen his children last. Maybe it was irrational, the sudden burst of terror that drove him out of the room and down the hall to check on them. He couldn’t shake it, though. Linda would chide him if she knew how often he got out of bed to go check on the twins in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t calm down until he saw they were safe. He wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Wally couldn’t sleep anyway.

The door to their room was silent as he opened it. He slipped inside just as quietly. Jai and Irey were both tucked into their respective beds sleeping soundly, just the way he’d left them. Wally let out a sigh of relief and slumped back against the wall, sliding down until his butt hit the floor. His hand combed through his hair, and he swallowed nervously, the relief giving way in an instant to the overwhelming idea that if he left them alone again, something bad would happen. 

That _was_ irrational. Wally knew that was irrational. Checking on them was one thing, but he couldn’t camp out in here. Was he supposed to never let them out of his sight again?

The idea was appealing.

“God,” he breathed out near silently, tugging at his hair. How was he supposed to keep them safe when he couldn’t even protect himself? 

No. No, Wally couldn’t think about it like that. He _had_ kept Jai safe, he reminded himself for the thousandth useless time. He’d been the sacrifice that had kept Hunter from doing whatever he would’ve done to his son. He would do anything to keep his kids safe. He would let Hunter hurt him again if that’s what it came down to. He was a _good parent_.

He was the reason they were in any danger in the first place.

He was a shit parent. He was worse than his own: worse than his emotionally negligent, narcissistic mom, worse than his...messed up, abusive con-artist of a father. His breath hitched—

—and Wally was in the bathroom under the shower before the first tear dripped off his cheek, lost in the cascade of water over his face. The tears didn’t come slowly. He leaned his forehead against the wall and sobbed: loud, desperate noises breaking out of him that he wasn’t quite sure the sound of the water covered. A shaky hand lifted to cover his mouth, and he screamed into it, frustration and fear and blinding anger exploding out of him, terrifying in its intensity. 

He could still feel Hunter: on him, over him, _inside_ him. The ghost of bruising hands dug into his hips. Days, it had been, and it hadn’t left him yet. Wally was so fucking tired of this. Tired of the nightmares, tired of the stress, the fear and worry, tired of the fact that it was his right arm broken, making everything that much slower and more fucking complicated to accomplish. Tired of being _tired_. 

It took time, he knew. It had barely been a week. It took _time_. 

Everything took so much fucking time. 

Wally had been half tempted to call up his old therapist, but Owen Slade had never been that great at his job, odd piece of useful advice aside. He didn’t think he could handle a therapist telling him he could have done better - or, worse, a therapist telling him there was nothing else he could have done. 

At least Linda still had no idea. 

Wally leaned back into the stream of water, letting it wash his face clean, and wiped the snot out of his nose. He showered as best he could and turned the water off. Standing under the shower head, he stared blankly at the wall through the darkness. The white tiles reflected the bright moonlight pouring in through the window, glinting off the droplets of water slowly making their way down.

 _Drip_ , he imagined and flinched.

Wally shook his head. He swallowed down everything he was feeling as he stepped out of the shower and dried off, and he counted the win when he managed to slip back into the bed without disturbing Linda. 

When they both woke in the morning (only the fifth time for him), Wally buried the nightmare before she could notice, plastered on his best smile, and went and checked on Irey and Jai (again). 

They were both still fine. 

Everything was fine except for him.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

Really, Wally should’ve known exactly what he would run into the moment he stepped foot onto the Watchtower, but he had been hoping if he were fast enough - or lucky enough - he would avoid Bruce entirely. If the past few weeks had taught him anything, it was that he was neither of those things. Batman was there to greet him almost as soon as he exited the transporter.

“Flash,” he said shortly, personable as always. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re off-duty until you heal.” His eyes raked over the cast that would be off in another two days. It was driving Wally crazy - but then, everything was driving Wally crazy lately. He’d screamed at Bart yesterday, and he couldn’t even remember over what. He’d gone off at Barry the day before. 

(“How are you doing?” Barry had asked, and the pity in his eyes - the pity that had sat there every fucking day when he’d come by since Hunter - had set Wally off.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he had snapped out, seething, and then snarled a lot of other things he didn’t mean, words spilling out faster than he could pull them back in: “Can you leave me alone? I don’t need you checking up on me!”, “I miss when you were _dead_ ; at least then I got some fucking peace!”, and “Get the fuck out of my house and don’t come back.”

The shock on Barry's face had been a dagger to his heart: the hurt radiating out of him as he left had been palpable. Wally had no idea how he would even begin to apologise. The thought of even seeing Barry again made him sick with a guilt he couldn’t shake.)

He was going stir-crazy. Left to his own devices, banned from heroics until he healed like it was his legs broken and not his arm, and stopped from doing almost everything else because it was his dominant hand was not a good combination. Linda had not-so-gently suggested he go bother someone else an hour ago when he’d worn a groove in the living room wood from pacing.

(It was just restlessness bothering him. Nothing else. It wasn’t the kids at school, outside of his sight, outside of his control, where he knew he shouldn’t go check on them getting to him. It wasn’t the self-doubt eating away at him, tugging at the threads, ripping apart his shaken sense of self. It wasn’t waking up crying, so terrified that he had to step into the shower every night to get himself under control. He was just restless.)

“I don’t need two arms to watch the monitors and talk to Oracle,” Wally snapped back. The last thing he needed right now was Bruce’s particular flavor of sanctimony.

“You do if there’s an emergency,” Bruce replied evenly. Wally’s face darkened.

"You think I can't--," he began sharply, too familiar anger bubbling up inside of him.

"Wally," Bruce cut him off before he could lose it. "Go home. Rest." The use of his name combined with that tone - softer and less unyielding - left him scrambling in an unreasonable panic because of course Bruce didn't know what had really happened. He was just _concerned_. It wasn't like there was a sign on his face screaming he'd been--

Wally scowled. "Fine," he snapped out, not having the energy to fight about this today. Bruce was only the first stumble if he decided to stay. Clark would be less abrasive but more insistent. Hal--

He suddenly felt sick. Hal had been there that day. He hadn’t thought about it, but Hal...Hal could know. 

This had been a bad idea.

“Are you okay?” The question caught him off guard, and he jerked his head up to stare at the ever-impassive face of Batman. His lips were pulled into a thin frown, and Wally felt like he was being examined: like Bruce could see everything he was trying to hide. 

If anyone _could_ figure it out just by looking at him, it would be Bruce. 

Wally stepped back through the transporter without answering, too aware of dark eyes on his back as he left. 

Home wasn't where he headed. It was a compulsion that pulled him to the elementary school. The doors loomed in front of him, taunting him, screaming at him that this was unhealthy for just one second before he gave in anyway. He slipped down the halls too fast for anyone to see and peeked in through the classroom window just long enough to reassure himself they were both still okay. 

Jai was good. 

_God_.

God, he was insane. _This_ was insane.

He was knocking at Roy's door halfway across the country the next second, fast and insistent to the point it threatened to shatter under his fist. 

"Hey, hold on; I'm coming!" was shouted from inside the apartment. And then: "Don't break my door, West!" Wally stopped knocking. He vibrated where he stood, unable to calm down. He barely even knew why he was here. 

The door clicked open and he was pacing back and forth across Roy's living room before Roy could even get a, "Hey," out, but the answer was suddenly crystal clear.

"I'm going crazy!" he exclaimed, yanking at his hair. Roy, still staring at the empty hall, closed and latched the door back before turning to Wally. 

"Which would imply you were ever sane." 

"I don't know how you do this," he continued desperately, ignoring the glib comment. "Let her out of your sight at all. I can barely go two hours without checking up on them. I haven’t even...haven’t made it through a whole fucking night! I keep going to their _school_. I just need to know they’re safe. I don’t think Linda would like it if she knew. I mean...at least before--Irey still has powers, you know, but _Jai_. He doesn’t anymore. He’s so _normal_ now. He can get hurt; he almost--and I can't…" He was hyperventilating again. He stopped in the middle of the living room bent over, hand fisted on his thigh. 

"Oh, dude," Roy said with an understanding sigh, moving over to the couch. "The parenting freakout. Been there. Man, I _live_ there."

Wally dropped down next to him, staring at Roy like he held all the answers and didn’t live his life winging it from one bad decision to the next. “How do you manage? How are you so rational? How are you not...not _terrified_ , all the fucking time?” 

Wally had an inkling suspicion the answer was that Roy hadn’t let himself get ra--

No. He wasn’t going there right now.

“Well, I mean, first of all, I only have one kid to screw up. You went and decided to pop out twins, so that is on you, my friend.” He went to jab Wally playfully in the shoulder, but Wally was across the room before it could land. 

“Sorry,” he said, twisting his hand in t-shirt. _Don’t touch me_ , was what he really wanted to say, but that was too unlike him. There was enough wrong as it was if he was coming to Roy for advice. Roy, who was too observant for his own good, watching him through contemplatively narrowed eyes that were too close to how Bruce had looked at him. “Just...not right now,” he settled on. 

Roy nodded slowly. “Of course you’re shaken up,” he said. “You and your kid just got kidnapped by arguably your craziest villain. It literally just happened. _You_ haven’t even finished healing yet, and you heal like...stupid fast. Also, if you think I am in any way rational about Lian at any given moment, you have clearly not spent enough time around me.” He paused, then clarified, “Not that that’s an invitation.” 

Wally, like the reasonable and mature parent he was, stuck his tongue out at him. Roy retaliated in kind, and a second later they were both laughing. The pressure on his chest eased up slightly.

Roy sighed, settling down. “I get it, though,” he said, and Wally realised why he’d ended up here. “Or do you not remember how crazy over the top I went with security after Lian was kidnapped by those traffickers? They _branded_ her, man. She will always have that scar. We rescued her from anything worse, but even that...” Roy’s voice shook with an anger that was all-too-familiar to Wally right now. He raised his head to meet Wally’s gaze. “God. I may not live in a bunker anymore, but don’t think I’ve toned down that much. If I had your powers…” He whistled. “I probably would have obsessively checked on her every minute, if I could be across the country in seconds.”

Wally shook his head and slumped down into the armchair sitting next to him. “You weren’t there, though. When she was taken.”

Roy was quiet for too long before he finally agreed, “No.”

“I couldn’t stop him,” Wally said blankly. He didn’t know if he was talking about what had happened in that grocery store parking lot, when Hunter had snatched them both, or later when Hunter had had him on his stomach…He swallowed, and brought his mind back around to where it was safe. “He blindsided me; that doesn’t...that doesn’t _happen_. When his...his hand was around Jai’s neck, I thought…What he did to _me_...” He stared down at the cast on his arm, a faint tremor spreading through his shoulders. 

“Your villains are fucking terrifying, you know that?”

Wally blinked, brow scrunched up in confusion as he stared at Roy. “What?” He hadn’t seen Roy look this serious in...possibly ever.

“It’s crazy to think about, because Garth has magic _,_ and Donna is... _Donna_ , and you’re just some dumb kid from fucking Nebraska of all places who got hit by _lightning_ that made you _go fast_ , and, like, Dick and I don’t even compare, but out of all of us...I think it’s you, probably.”

“What’s me?” Wally had no idea what Roy was trying to say. “I’m the most fun? The most likable?” Even to his own ears, the jab fell flat. Roy didn’t try to take him up on it. He just shook his head.

“No. You’re the strongest.”

Wally froze, jaw floundering as his brain killed any possible response for two seconds too long. Finally, he scoffed, huffing out disbelief. “You kidding me? I’ll take Garth, but Donna’s fucking...Donna’s _mythological_ , dude.”

“Yeah, and she was rebuilt from _your memories_ once, when the rest of us had forgotten, because you were, what...time travelling? Jumping dimensions for fun?”

“I was not--” 

Roy waved a hand dismissively. “But that’s beside the point. I mean, it’s part of the point, but not the actual point. My point is...what you said: _that’s_ my point. She’s mythological, yeah. You’re _not_. You can do all these...crazy fucking things, Wally, but you’re still human. You can get hurt. You don’t, so it’s easy to forget because your superpowers are _ridiculous_. It’s weird seeing you with a cast on; it’s weird hearing you talk about not being able to stop someone. Probably not as much of a shock even as it is to you, but...someone who outclasses _you_ is...terrifying to think about, man.” 

Wally’s lips were a thin white line. His hand hurt from clenching his fist so tight.

“He doesn’t.” The harsh words were little more than a whisper, barely audible as they broke the stillness in the room. Before Roy could say anything, Wally cleared his throat and repeated, louder, “He _doesn’t_. I beat him. I beat him every fucking time, it’s just always…” _Too late_. Always after Hunter had done all the damage he could do and more. “How the fuck am I not fast enough?”

“I’d say you were,” Roy said easily. “You always are. Jai’s alive, right?”

He nodded stiffly. 

“Sometimes, I think that’s just the best thing to be grateful for. I’m fucking terrified for Lian, and she’s been through some shit, but she’s still _here_. And so is Jai, so...hey, at least we’ve both still got the best reason to be terrified.” He paused, then added, “Other than the very reasonable fear I have that Cheshire is going to murder me one day if I let anything else happen to her.”

Wally choked out a laugh. 

Roy stood back up. “Anyway, this has been fun, but I have monitor duty. I’d invite you along, but…”

“Yeah, Batman already kicked me out of the Watchtower once today. _‘Go heal’_ , he said, like _he_ knows what that means. I’d like to see him off duty with a broken arm. Besides, I’ll be fine in a day or two.” He almost tripped over the word fine.

Roy stood up, ushering Wally towards the door. “God, your powers are the worst. Sometimes I hate you.” He was grinning as he said it, though, and the heaviness in the air dissipated all at once.

Wally’s return smile was weak. He wanted to make a smart comment - return the banter in kind - but all he could muster was a much too sincere, “Thanks, Roy.”

“Just don’t make a habit of coming to me for advice; it’s weird. I don’t like being the responsible, reasonable one.”

“Yeah, I’ll...I’ll fire you whenever Dick gets around to having a kid.” That was normal, almost. Wally was impressed with himself.

“So never, basically.” Wally rolled his eyes as Roy shooed him the rest of the way out. “But hey: if you want to bring the twins around for a playdate one day, Lian would love that.”

“Yeah; I’ll work it out with Linda when’s a good time.” He turned to leave.

“Oh, and West?” Wally turned back, eyebrow raised. “With all your crazy, ridiculous powers, your kids are lucky to have you.” And then the door closed in his face. 

That was why he had come to Roy. Wally felt better. Not good - he was starting to forget what good felt like - but better. He turned to head home, and didn’t stop back at the school on the way.


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

“The kids are in bed. The criminals are all sleeping.” Linda stepped close to him, a sly grin on her face as she dragged a finger up his chest. “You and me have some catching up to do.”

Wally wrapped his arms around her waist. The cast was long gone. He’d been ecstatic when he’d finally gotten full use of his limbs back three weeks ago. The Rogues he’d gone back to punching vigorously had been less so. 

He leaned down, pressing their noses together. “I could’ve been caught up ages ago. _Someone_ made me wait.” He put on a fake high voice, mimicking, “ _‘Don’t watch Stars of Star City_ _without me, Wally.’_ I will have you know I was bored out of my mind trying to find something to do, and you wouldn’t even let me have that.” If that came off a little petulantly, well, Wally felt it was deserved. 

Linda snorted. “You know how hot it makes me when you whine.”

She shrieked as Wally swept her off her feet and dropped her onto the couch the next room over in the same motion. He plopped down on the other end of the couch and grabbed the blanket, tossing it over their legs.

Linda grabbed the remote. “Remember when you used to sweep me off my feet and spontaneously take me to Paris?” she asked. “Now I get treated to our living room.” An overly dramatic, despondent sigh loosed from her lips. 

“The romance is dead,” he agreed. “Though I _can_ whisk you anywhere else between eight and three on weekdays, provided no one is trying to, you know, destroy the universe. I do have that whole ‘superhero’ hobby going.”

“You don’t say!” she gasped. “Unfortunately, one of us has to work to support our lifestyle. We can’t all get by on our looks.”

“I mean, I _am_ a pretty damn perfect trophy husband.”

“With an ass like yours, you have to be.” Wally’s smile stiffened for half a second, too fast for Linda to catch before he relaxed back into the easy back and forth they shared. The TV flicked on, and she scrolled through the various apps hunting for their show. 

“I heard they managed to get Oliver this season,” he said. “Roy told me they caught him on a bad day. It was five straight minutes of him cursing out the camera crew before Connor dragged him away.”

“Was he actually cursing them out or just impassionately screaming at them to unionize?” 

Wally let out a sharp burst of laughter. 

“I’m just saying; based off what I know of Green Arrow.” She shrugged. 

“Ollie is a mess.” Most of them were messes. Even Barry was a bit of a mess, if Wally was honest with himself. Wally loved the man dearly (still feeling guilty; still hadn’t apologised to him; still hadn’t talked to him since he’d said what he’d said, but Wally wasn’t thinking about that right now), but Barry still had the occasional glaring crack in his facade. 

Barry was a perfect picture of pristine compared to Wally.

He sighed and focussed back on Linda. They hadn’t had a night like this - a night to themselves with nothing around to interrupt them - since before. Almost two months since he’d sat down with her to watch shit TV. That wasn’t great.

Wally was willing to admit he might have been going a bit overboard with how much he’d thrown himself back into policing Keystone since he’d been cleared medically. He needed to keep moving, though. When he stopped, he started to think, and when he started to think about things…

Wally didn’t want to think about it anymore. It had been over a month. He was fine.

"We do need to go out again," he sighed.

"We could ask Bart to babysit this weekend?" Linda was entirely understanding and in agreement about Wally's new superhero-only babysitter stipulation. It wasn't that much different from before except Wally didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with just Iris. (To tell the truth, he didn't feel comfortable leaving the kids with just Linda, either, but that wasn't even worth the fight it would start.)

He shook his head. “That’s a no-go. Bart’s not talking to me.” Linda turned her head slowly to frown at him.

“What did you do?”

Part of Wally felt he should be offended by that, but the larger part of him knew it was fair. He winced, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I, uh...I may have told him I was wrong when I gave him my stamp of approval, and that he’ll never be half as good as I was?”

Annoyance flickered through her eyes. Linda opened her mouth to say something, paused, then closed it again, rolling her eyes up to the heavens. “Dear God, I thought we were past this,” she settled on. And then: “Whatever. We can deal with that tomorrow. What about Barry, then?”

Wally’s wince was even sharper. He pinned his eyes to the TV. “Ah, yeah. I’m...not talking to _him_?” He still hadn’t figured out how to apologise. Every time he thought about talking to Barry his stomach twisted violently, and bile forced its way up his esophagus. Years, he’d wanted Barry back, and now he had him and was avoiding him. 

That, though, got a flash of concern from his wife. “ _You’re_ not talking to _Barry_?”

“We had a fight,” he mumbled under his breath, looking anywhere but at her.

“...You didn’t tell me that.” Her voice was soft, the look on her face inscrutable. Of course he hadn’t. Telling her would mean telling her why, and that all tied back to everything he didn’t want her to know; it all tied back to Hunt--

No. 

There was so much he couldn’t tell Linda. 

God, he was _better_ now. This couldn't bother him anymore. He'd given it time; it needed to go away. (Wally had the terrifying feeling it would never leave him.)

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. So, uh. I could probably ask Max.”

“That’s a plan, then, I guess.” They fell into silence, watching the TV. The mood between them had shifted, tension overtaking the easy atmosphere that had been between them. He’d almost even relaxed. 

The show switched to commercial, and Linda got up, padding to the bathroom. A flushing toilet and then she was back, wandering through the kitchen on the way to the couch. “You want some tea?” she asked. 

“I’m good.” The pipe turned on then off, then the kettle started up, and the show switched back over from commercial. He twitched. “It’s back on.”

“Yes, I can see that from all five feet away, where the kitchen is.” 

“ _Linda_ ,” he groaned. She dropped back down onto the couch, tugging the blanket off him to curl up under it. Wally twitched again, jaw clenching. He jerked the end of the blanket back over his lap, spreading it more evenly between them. 

“I know you’re not cold; you’re a furnace.” 

Her tone was light, but it grated on him all the same. He scowled. “I’m the one who got the blanket to begin with,” he muttered. “If you’re that cold, go get your own.” 

His chest tightened. Wally pursed his lips and breathed in deeply, letting the tension flow out on the exhale. “Sorry,” he apologised before she could say anything. “That was...I mean, you’re right. I’m not cold. Have the blanket.” 

“How about we share,” she decided diplomatically. He had to force himself to smile as she flipped sides of the couch, laying half on top of him in order to fit. The blanket pulled easily over both of them. This was how they’d spent a lot of nights watching TV before: snuggled up on the couch.

Wally didn’t know why he suddenly wanted to run screaming from this room. He tried to grab onto something - anything - to ground him in the moment and grabbed onto Linda, wrapping his arms loosely around her. Silence fell between them, the only sound through the house the low screams of trashy reality dramas. They watched the rest of the episode like that, all of the next, and got halfway into a third. Linda shifted around on the couch until they were laying nose to nose. 

His heart beat heavily in his chest, and Wally shifted away - or tried to, rather, but his back was already against the cushions, and his lungs were crushing themselves into a tiny ball with how trapped he suddenly felt. He pasted on a lazy grin, hoping she wouldn’t notice, but the affection in his eyes was all real.

He twitched a third time, too fast for Linda to tell.

“I know something’s going on with you.” They were the last words Wally wanted to hear. The world fell out from under him, and he was spinning - dropping down an empty chasm into an endless nightmare abyss. 

“I don’t know what--”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said. “But don’t keep lying to me.” 

He shook his head wordlessly.

"It's not even that you didn't tell me about this fight with Barry, but the fact that you had one in the first place. Granted, the way you idolise him is ridiculous--"

"I do not idolise him," he pouted.

Linda gave him a flat look. "You once told me, what was it? Ah, yes, that Barry Allen was a _god_ to you, and I'm not paraphrasing."

Wally couldn't exactly argue that point. He shrugged lamely. 

"You've been on edge. Irritable. Getting up in the middle of the night to check on the kids - don't think I haven't noticed." Wally closed his eyes so he didn't have to look at her. Every muscle was tensed, his instincts screaming at him to flee, but his fists were clenched tight in the fabric of her t-shirt and not about to let go. 

“I just need to see he’s okay.” 

“I know.” Her voice was as quiet as his. “It’s hard sometimes. God knows I didn’t react too well when we lost them before.” When she’d been pregnant. When Hunter had attacked her. When she’d left him because she couldn’t handle Wally being the Flash, hating him as much as she loved him as she walked out that door. Wally wished he could hate Hunter the way he’d hated himself then. 

He cracked his eyes open. “Yeah; you disappeared so completely the cops thought I’d murdered you.” He laughed slightly, but it did little to cover the tension he couldn’t drop. Linda smiled.

“That one was on me.” 

“No, it wasn’t.” None of that situation had been Linda’s fault. Wally hadn’t meant to lie to her - he hadn’t meant to lie to himself, either, to make them both forget he was the reason they were grieving. The lack of trust had nearly done them in, and he suddenly felt consumed with guilt that he wasn’t telling her the truth now.

That was different, he tried to console himself. He was the only one who’d been hurt this time. He’d been hurt plenty of times before; he didn’t tell her the details of every single incident. That time, she’d been hurt. It was _different_. 

“You’ve never had to hide from me. Don’t start now.”

“I’m not,” he lied, and then flinched. The thin smile she returned him screamed she didn’t quite believe it, but she was dropping it for now.

“Well, if that’s cleared up.” Linda's hands were at his waist, one finger dipping underneath the elastic of his sweatpants. “Right now, I recommend we take advantage of the fact that our kids are sleeping to help you take that edge off. It’s been weeks.” 

Wally felt faint, awkward smile staring at her as his wife tugged them down his hips. This wasn’t the first time she’d more than hinted, and it got slightly more awkward every time he turned her down. His _wife_. Maybe he could let her? Just this once? They’d had sex a million times in a million different places in a million different ways. The thought of it should not bother him. He loved Linda, and he loved having sex with Linda. It wasn’t a burden. It was _fun_. It was his wife!

The waistband slid over his ass, and he couldn’t breathe. 

Wally grabbed her hand and sat up, pulling away until his back hit the arm of the couch. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just...not in the mood.”

Linda’s eyes tightened as she sat up, shifting back to the opposite end of the couch. There was no hiding the disappointed sigh as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “No, of course not,” she muttered under her breath. 

He froze. “Seriously?” A storm crossed his face in an instant, and Wally was up on his feet, incensed. Linda frowned at him, confused. “You can’t just live with the fact that I don’t feel up to having sex tonight?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re sitting there being disappointed like, what, I should just always be in the damn mood? I don’t want to, okay!”

Linda clicked off the TV and pulled herself up to her feet, too. “And I’m not trying to make you!” she snapped back. “Sorry if I’m _disappointed_. I’m allowed to be! It’s been _weeks_ since we last had sex, but I’m not _making_ you do anything you don’t want to!”

“God!” he shouted, and he couldn’t even think about the kids sleeping, didn’t even hope that they wouldn’t get woken up by the fight brewing between them. He flinched, full-bodied, teeth grinding together inside his mouth, and almost screamed. "I don't exist just for you to fuck whenever you feel like it!"

"I don't even _know_ what you're mad about, but you need to calm down!" There was a warning note in her voice that he didn't have the capacity to heed. Wally didn't know what he was mad about, either, but telling him to calm down just wound him up more.

 _Drip_.

The sound broke loudly through everything. He didn't know where it came from, or if it was just his imagination. For one horrible, eternal second, the room faded out and he was back there. Then, he was back, anger that he couldn't hold in exploding onto Linda. 

"Maybe _you_ need to think about someone other than yourself! If you thought about it for two seconds, maybe you'd _know_ why I'm mad!" Words were flying out of his mouth, but Wally didn't even know what he was saying. He couldn't stop himself. 

"All I know is you're being unreasonable! Is this how you ended up with half of the rest of your family not talking to you?" 

He opened his mouth.

 _Drip_.

That _goddamn_ noise. He was in the kitchen the next second, glaring at her from over the sink. " _I'm_ being unreasonable? You're the one who can't even turn off the goddamn faucet!" He slammed his fist down to turn the pipe off the rest of the way, but lightning crackled, metal snapped, and water erupted over him in a torrent.

He stared at the gushing sink with a distant sort of surprise, the fight washed right out of him. The full impact of what had just happened hit him, and he turned to stare at Linda, a horrible feeling twisting through his stomach, threatening to expel out of him. An apology was on his lips until he saw the look on her face, and the words died. 

"Get out." 

"Linda...I…" Wally felt pathetic, standing under the fountain of water still spewing out and searching for some way to make this better.

"I don't know what you're going through," each word drew out slowly, harsher than the one before it, "and right now, I don't care. That behaviour? Is _not_ acceptable."

"Linda--"

"You need to _leave_." A two ton weight sat crushing his chest. He couldn't breathe. His head jerked up and down, words still dead in his mouth as the silence pressed down between them. 

"Mommy?" The quiet voice caught them both by surprise. They spun almost in unison - something that would've been hilarious under other circumstances, he was sure - to see Jai turning the corner from the hall, a yawn pouring out of his lips. He blinked lethargically, looking back and forth between them, still caught in the thrall of sleep. 

Linda sprung into movement before Wally. He stood, frozen still, under the deluge, mind struggling to wrap itself around everything that was happening. Horror tugged at his heart, churning into nausea as he watched Linda pick Jai up.

"Hey, sweetie, what are you doing up? Is your sister awake, too?"

"There was a noise," he said softly, a faint tremor in his voice. "Irey's still sleep." Linda shot a hard, meaningful glance over her shoulder at Wally. His throat was so dry, swallowing felt like scraping sandpaper down his esophagus. He wanted to cry. Honestly, he wasn't sure he wasn't. Jai turned his sleepy eyes past Linda to the kitchen. To Wally. "What happened to the sink?"

She sucked in a sharp breath. Wally's jaw worked uselessly, reaching for words that still weren't there.

"Nothing, Jai. Daddy just had an accident. But there's an _emergency_ , and he has to _go_ be a superhero now, _right, Wally_?" Her clipped, pointed tone hurt him even more.

He couldn't pull his eyes away from Jai to answer. Linda breathed in deeply, clamping down on her anger for Jai's benefit. "You need to _leave_ ," she repeated. "Come back when you've got everything _sorted_."

He nodded again, water soaking his clothes through completely. The valve for the pipe was under the sink, and he ducked down, finally, and cranked it off. He stood back up, unable to reconcile everything that had just happened. "I'm sorry," he croaked, and then he was gone.

He wandered aimless, running to burn off the nerves - the fear still sitting in his chest. It didn't help. He didn't know how to fix this, just like he didn't know how to fix every other relationship he'd messed up lately. There was only one he hadn't. He turned automatically in that direction.

Wally was crying. Eyes burning, blurring his vision, tears mapping silent lines down the planes of his face. He couldn't stop. Couldn't think. A panic built inside him, one only tangentially connected to Hunter as the evening played out on loop in his mind. What was wrong with him?

The front door appeared in front of him almost before he realised, and Wally pounded desperately until the lights clicked on inside the house and it swung open.

It wasn't Iris who stood in the doorway. She was there, too, in the background, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as she asked who it was at the door, but Wally barely noticed.

"Barr--," he cut himself off, choking, frozen for the second time tonight.

"Wally?" Barry asked cautiously, reaching a hand out towards him.

Wally ran.

There had been too many years without Barry. He hadn't even considered visiting Iris would mean Barry could answer. He'd gotten too used to seeing Iris alone, which was ironic given he'd spent even more years just him and Barry when they'd thought she was dead. That last confrontation ( _"I miss when you were dead."_ ) churned up a level of guilt inside he couldn't deal with right now. Not tonight.

"Wally!" Barry shouted after him, alarmed. Wally felt his uncle give chase, but couldn't bring himself to turn around and look at him. "What's wrong?" 

Too much was wrong. Every fucking thing was wrong. He couldn't _deal_ with this right now. 

"Wally!" Barry shouted again, closer now, and then grabbing his arm which didn't make sense because Wally was faster than Barry; he was _faster_. They both knew it. Barry couldn't…couldn't catch him, unless Wally was losing that, too, his control slipping away like it had when--

"Let me help you," Barry said in his ear. They weren't running anymore. Wally didn't know when he'd stopped. They stood out under the moon in the middle of a desert, the landscape as barren as his heart. Barry had his arms around him. Wally dragged his hands up, clutching onto him, twisting his fingers in the loose fabric of Barry's t-shirt. The weight of the evening pushed his head down onto his uncle's shoulder, a mangled sob escaping his throat.

He wanted to pull away. He didn’t have the strength to.

"What happened?" Barry asked, voice even.

“What I…what I said to you--” He bit down on his lip, teeth slicing sharply through the thin skin.

Barry shook his head. “I’m not mad.” He should’ve been mad, or hurt, or just generally upset. It bothered Wally that he wasn’t. “What happened?”

Wally pulled away reluctantly, and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Linda k-kicked me out." He couldn't even talk properly. "I...I d-deserved it; I," he broke off with a shuddering sob. "I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me.” 

Barry sighed. There were a million things he wanted to say wrapped up in that sigh. “Yeah,” he went with, voice soft. One hand rested on Wally’s shoulder, and the other hand rested on his neck, nudging Wally’s head around to look him in the eyes. Wally glanced away almost immediately. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Wally.”

He snorted disbelievingly. "I got so fuc--so _angry_ ," he explained, "and I don't know why." He stopped, swallowed, and added, "I broke the sink."

Barry paused. “You--”

“I broke the _sink_. I just...I needed it to stop; I didn’t even know what I was doing, and I...I _woke Jai up_.” That, somehow, was the worst crime of all. 

Barry nodded like he understood. Wally doubted he really understood anything, especially when he continued with: “You need to tell Linda what’s going on.”

 _"I don't know what you're going through, and right now, I don't care,”_ echoed through his mind. Wally shook his head furiously, terrified to his core. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t! That won’t make a difference, okay? She doesn’t need to know about it. I got _hurt_. I just got hurt; I just need to...to fucking get _over_ myself.”

Barry’s voice was firm, and the hand on his shoulder was even more firm. “Wally. You didn’t _just_ get hurt. You were--you went through a...a _trauma_ and getting angry with yourself isn’t helping. She will _understand_ if you tell her.”

Still shaking his head, even more desperate than before, he gasped out: “No, _God_ ; she can’t _know_.” She couldn’t know how badly he’d failed. She couldn’t know that the idea he could protect them was a lie. It would destroy him. Wally worked so fucking hard to make himself a good life, and every single time Hunter came along, he collapsed it with one move. 

“Besides,” he snapped out, suddenly vicious, “who are _you_ to advise telling _anyone_ the truth?” It was a testament to Barry that he didn’t rise to the bait, choosing instead to wait. Guilt flooded through him immediately. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that. _Fuck._ I'm losing it on everyone lately.” And then, the thought he was most afraid of: “What if I lose it on the kids?” The words were barely a whisper. “I can’t be that to them. I can’t put them through that, Barry.” He couldn’t put them through what he’d gone through. If he couldn’t keep his temper under control...He had terrified Linda, he was sure, but even more than that, “I’m scared of myself.”

Barry let out a deep, sad sigh. “C’mon,” he said instead of answering. That he hadn’t reassured Wally he wouldn’t was telling. Wally thought he might throw up. Linda had made him leave, and Barry had no faith in him. That wasn’t a surprise, given he’d just admitted he had no faith in himself. Still, when Barry moved, Wally followed him blindly the way he always had. It was a familiar comfort right now; an easy, mindless pattern to repeat. He wasn’t surprised when they ended up back at the house. 

When the front door opened, he was surprised to see that Iris still stood in the hall, clutching her robe around her. They hadn’t been that fast, Wally thought, for her to still be there. Barry walked in first, nudging his head behind him, and Iris peered around him with a frown. Her eyes lit up when she saw Wally, loosening the lines of worry on her face. Oh, he realised. 

She was waiting for _him_. 

He felt like a kid again, all of fourteen and running away from home for the night to crash at their place because his parents were fighting again, and it was impossible to sleep with them screaming at each other (better than screaming at him). The more things changed. 

Except this time he was the parent, and he’d been the one fighting. Jai’s confused face drifted through his mind, squeezing his heart tight once more.

Iris stepped in front of Wally almost before the door had shut behind them. “Are you okay?” she asked immediately, resting a hand on his cheek. A thumb wiped loosely at the tears still leaking out of his eyes. “Did something happen?” 

Wally was tempted for a second to spill it all. Iris would understand - she’d always understood, and she would probably have the right thing to say to him to make him feel better. That was what Barry wanted, he was sure. Wally couldn’t open up to him; he couldn’t open up to Linda. That left Iris. He opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat.

“No,” he said instead of what he knew he should. “I’ll be fine.” His voice was hoarse with the lie. “Just...just had a bad fight with Linda. Can I crash here tonight?” 

Iris agreed immediately. “You know you’re always welcome. Do you want to talk about it?”

 _Yes_ , he almost wanted to say. “No,” he repeated out loud, voice hoarse. 

Barry frowned the way he had that day at S.T.A.R. Labs. “ _Yes_ ,” Barry said softly - insistently - next to him. His hand was on Wally’s shoulder, and he squeezed once in reassurance even as it felt like the world was falling out from under his feet. Barry wouldn’t...he wouldn’t tell her, would he? Wally had only asked him not to tell Linda; he hadn’t said Iris. He couldn’t...Wally wasn’t ready to deal with how Hunter had hurt him. 

Saying it aloud felt like making it real.

(He knew it was real. He didn’t want it to be.)

“Wally’s afraid of turning into Rudy.” The breath he’d been holding let out all at once.

Iris’s eyes softened drastically. “Wally,” she breathed out. “I don’t know what your fight was about.” He opened his mouth to...what, he wasn’t entirely sure. Not _tell_ her. She shushed him anyway. “I don’t need to know. I know my brother, and more importantly: I know you. You will never, ever - not in a million years - be the type of man he is. You’re a better man than that.”

She hugged him, then, and Wally hugged back, mumbling out a thanks he didn’t quite feel even as the reassurance warmed him.

Maybe he had been better than that, but the thing was...with how he was spiralling, with what Hunter had taken from him, Wally wasn’t sure what kind of person he was turning into anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I just realised I forgot to post. The one danger of pre-written stories...
> 
> I need an alarm, lol.
> 
> Anyway, I have upped the rating with this here chapter just for safety's sake. TW: There is a brief (out of sequence) flashback, but I mean...you know what you're about reading this story already, I imagine. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

V.

Wally was with the Titans. 

It hadn’t been anything official - they were still a relatively on again/off again team, currently set to off - just a casual get together at their favourite diner. Garth had been the first one there, and then Wally. Dick and Donna had shown up at the same time, and Roy was late. It was easy to pretend with them: pretend that he was himself and his life wasn’t systematically being pulled apart by his own hand. He could smile and laugh and joke and rag on Dick just the same as always. (He couldn’t flirt with Donna. He’d tried, but the words had caught in his throat before any could escape.) They were danger magnets, though, and a casual get together never stayed just that. None of them even knew the Fearsome Five were complete again. It was hard to keep track of every villain team. At least the Fearsome Five were an easy familiar pattern to fall into; fighting them was second nature. Everyone picked their target, and, like usual, Wally went straight for--

 _'Oh, that's interesting,'_ reverberated through him, a loud and silent alarm. 

Wally was with the Titans.

And then he wasn’t.

_“You’ll be better for this.” Hunter’s voice, harsh in his ear. Wally was pinned down. Helpless. Struggling against the panic that threatened to overwhelm him, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. He could barely think past the pain. Ache was too weak a word for the mind-numbing agony in his arm, still throbbing mercilessly from the tight grip meant to teach him a lesson. He wanted to cry._

_Hunter pressed up against his ass._

_Drip._

_‘No,’ Wally thought desperately, again, a broken whimper escaping his throat. ‘No, no, no, no, nononononono.’ Something was off. He didn't want this._

_Hunter ripped into him in one brutal thrust. Wally screamed._

_‘No,’ ran on repeat in his mind, the only word he could conjure. Hunter fucked him relentlessly, too slow and too fast all at once._

_“I’m not,” Hunter began, voice breaking off for a second, “Thawne.”_

_This was wrong. He sobbed brokenly into the floor, struggling to focus on anything else. Struggling not to think about what was happening, not to think about...about blood staining the back of his thighs._

_'Hiding something like this? I'm honestly surprised.' The words weren't a clear voice so much as a sadistically gleeful feeling rushing through him, a sense of wicked laughter, impossible to process over the feel of Hunter tearing into him, shattering him all over again._

_Again?_

_This wasn't right._

_"I don't care if you hate me," Hunter continued. Wally shook his head - his whole body shook - and he couldn't block it out, couldn't stop what was happening. He was useless. Weak._

_He half wished Hunter would--_

_Drip._

_\--kill him when he finished. Living with this was a nightmare, ripping him apart._

_"I’ve told you before, you’ll thank me one day, but even if you don’t…you’ll be better for it."_

_Again, and again, and again, and again, and this was wrong still. This hadn't happened._

_No._

_This hadn't--_

_No._

_Blood slid a slow, winding path down the inside of his thigh, down, and down, and down--_

_Drip._

_This wasn't…_

_"'M not...gonna kill you…" The words sat heavy in his throat, yet far away. A blinding rage sparked in hate-twisted eyes._

_No._

_This had already happened._

_"I am_ helping _you!"_

_He crashed hard into the ground when his feet slid out from under him, gasping for air. The pain knocked every ounce of wind out of his body--_

_Dri--_

_\--he curled up, terror blossoming in the empty space that had been his heart._

_This had--_

_Wally shook, biting back the sharp whimpers. Hunter was fucking him again. It hurt more. It hurt so much; he hadn't thought it could - no._

_Dr--_

_Had._

_Hunter had--_

_This was wrong._

_A hand around his throat, choking him--_

_This wasn't happening._

_That--_

_"You did good." Barry. "I'm so sorry."_

_\--had._

_He'd already; this wasn't how it had--_

Wally snapped back to himself with red in his vision and on his fist, Psimon gripped tight in his other hand. The casing over his brain was cracked, but Wally didn't notice - didn't care. Couldn't get his mind to wrap around anything but:

"No," he said again, out loud, and punched him again. "No, no, no, no, no." Over and over, he hit him, trapped in a frenzy of rage and panic. The psychic was limp now, but Wally still didn't stop punching, couldn't stop saying it.

Arms wrapped around him, yanking him off, and Wally yelled out, struggling against the iron grip. Someone was calling his name.

"Flash!" He heard distantly, and then again, as he vibrated to break free of whoever was holding him because he couldn't breathe, his lungs were empty and uncooperative, and then, finally: "Wally!"

It was Dick, staring horrified at him. 

"Wally, calm down!" someone else said, right in his ear. Donna. "You'll kill him if you keep this up!"

He was crying, his face dripping wet with tears, and the taste of salt was strong on his lips. Psimon was a red mess on the ground in front of him, quietly moaning as Dick did his best to administer first aid. That was disgusting; Psimon didn't deserve Dick's first aid. The thought of brushing past him to keep going flitted around the edges of his mind. He might have if Donna weren't still holding him back, clutching tight despite the vibrations rubbing her arms raw. Bile built up in his throat. Wally was going to be sick. 

He could still feel…still feel Hunter…inside of him; he would never be rid of the violation. Psimon had dug through his mind and violated him all over again. The distance he’d managed to put between him and Hunter was gone. He just wanted it to be over. He wanted to be _better_. 

Sharp gasps broke through the relative silence, shuddering and wet. The thought of being _‘better’_ almost made him have a panic attack right then and there. 

Donna kept her hold until he stilled, and then held on longer. He went limp. The blood on the ground leaked out of Psimon in interesting patterns, patterns Wally traced back and forth with his eyes, barely cognizant of the extent of the damage he’d done. Psimon was going to be in the hospital for a good long while most likely. The knowledge that he should feel bad about it weighed heavy in his chest. All he wanted was for the man to choke on his own blood. 

“Can I let you go?” Donna asked him. Her voice was soft, but warily so. Wally didn’t respond. He didn’t have to, either, because Dick chose that moment to stand up and whirl around on him. Donna let go.

“Wally! What were you thinking?!” Dick shouted, stress levels already skyrocketing. “You nearly killed him!” It wasn't concern for Psimon; it was concern for something so violent coming from Wally that had Dick upset.

Roy, jogging up from where he’d restrained some of the others across the street, caught the end of the sentence, looked at the bloody mess on the ground, and whistled. “Damn, Wally. You really _did_ do a number on him.”

“ _Roy._ ” The look Dick shot him was pointed. Roy shrugged. “Did he even deserve that?” Dick continued, swivelling back around to dress Wally down. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Wally snarled out, all vengeful fury and vitriol and barely controlled energy crackling underneath his skin. Psimon wasn’t Hunter, he knew. He wasn’t the one who’d hurt him. It still terrified him, what had happened. Hunter, though, was trapped away in Iron Heights again, outside of Wally’s zone of control.

Dick’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know _better_ than that. You’re a member of the Justice League for god’s sake.” Dick wasn’t shouting anymore. Wally wished he would shout. The same concern that he’d been getting from Linda, from Iris (less than what he got from Barry) painted over his face, brows knitted together with worry. Wally was shaking again, too fast for anyone bar Donna to notice. “Did he--?”

“What is going on?” Garth had joined them now, too, his question cutting Dick off before he could finish his sentence. He raised an eyebrow at the blood splatters, but offered no other commentary. Everyone just looked at Wally, judging him. Seeing through him, seeing the one thing he didn’t want them to know. 

“Wally’s having an early midlife crisis,” Roy informed Garth. If only.

“Not helpful,” Dick snapped at him. 

Innocent hands raised above his shoulders. “Hey; I already called for an ambulance.”

Dick sighed rather than respond, turning back to Wally. “Look, let’s just...finish cleaning this up. We can talk later.”

“No,” Wally said blankly.

“No?” Dick repeated. The concern grew on all their faces. He couldn’t look at any of them. Wally stumbled half a step away from Donna, suddenly itchy with the need to put distance between them. The breakdown he’d been fighting was clawing its way back up to drag him all the way down with it. It was a fight not to scream. 

"Wally?” The word thrummed with caution as Dick approached gingerly - like he wasn’t sure what was happening entirely or how Wally would react if he got too close. A hand landed lightly on his shoulder, and Wally flinched too fast for Dick to notice, turning sharply in an instant. Dick stayed steady, focussed on asking the important questions. “What’s wrong? Did he do something to you?”

His ass and arm and _everything_ hurt like it was still happening. The faint echoes of blood trickling down the back of his thighs felt as real as they had then. Wally was still trapped in the nightmare. He looked at Psimon again and for a second too long thought about killing him (the way he could never admit he wanted to kill Hunter). It would be so simple. So fast. Over before anyone could react, over before this bastard got the chance to hurt anyone else ever again. 

Had he ever used his telepathy to force anyone to have sex with him? Once it crossed his mind, the thought wouldn’t leave. Psimon seemed the type.

“ _Wally_.” He swung his eyes back around to meet Dick’s. A muted horror swelled up into his throat. “Say something. You’re worrying us.” Wally wanted to smile, laugh, toss his head and make a joke. Instead, he stared at Dick for what felt like eternity. 

“He...he deserved it,” Wally finally croaked out, so thin it barely turned into a sound. He barely caught the looks Dick and Donna exchanged. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t acting like himself. 

Wally could barely remember how he was supposed to act.

_‘I’m…’_

“Wrong,” he didn’t realise he said aloud until Dick was standing directly in front of him, repeating, “ _What’s_ wrong?” not for the first time. 

Instinct screamed at him, prompting him into swift action. A faint, mumbled goodbye sat on the wind behind him as he vanished, gone before he could grasp Dick shouting after him. He wasn’t running away this time, as much as he wanted to. As much as he didn’t know who or what he’d be running _from_. There was no way to outrun himself when _he_ was the problem. 

Pulling him in like a magnet, he ran to his anchor. His lightning rod.

He ran to Linda.

She was on the phone in the office when he made it into the house minutes later. Eyes glanced over, worry tinged with anger as she held a hand up to ask for a minute. Wally nodded and began to pace back and forth, letting his costume melt away. Things had been tense between them since their fight. He avoided the kitchen. The sink hadn’t been fixed yet, even more blatant evidence that something was wrong with him - something he _didn’t_ know how to fix, unlike the sink which he just hadn’t done. 

“Yeah, they’re with Barry,” Linda said, and then, “yeah,” again. “Thanks for telling me.” He wondered who she was speaking to until, “Don’t worry; he’s here now.” Another pause, and then, “I will. You, too.”

“Dick?” he asked when she clicked the phone off. The word came out strong, zero hesitation or floundering, and just being near her he felt more like himself again. Of course Dick called her to tell her what happened. He could recognise how terrifying he’d been. 

Linda nodded. Her hands were on her hips, and she stared at him, lips thin, until the silence crawled underneath his skin, threatening to send him running again. His heart beat fast even for him, then faster, and faster with each passing beat. 

He could still feel Hunter touching him.

“What?” Panic clawed at the sides of his mind, closing in with intent to consume him.

“Dick said you nearly just killed someone.” It wasn’t a question. Wally swallowed. His tongue ached for water, for saliva - for anything to moisten it back. She waited. He half jerked his head in a nod.

Pursing her lips, Linda asked, “What really happened with Hunter?” 

He froze, eyes wide with terror. Or, rather, she froze as time slowed to a crawl around him. Even still, the recovery was not smooth. He floundered for an answer - for anything other than the truth, which he didn’t want to touch - didn’t want to think about (couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t escape the paralysis, the feeling of blood and cum dripping down his thighs, the fingers digging into his hips). Wally was going to be sick. 

“You already know what happened,” was the only thing he could think to say. 

“Do I?” she shot back. “Because you said the worst was your broken arm, and I know you said that for Irey’s sake. I don’t believe that’s true.”

“It is.” The lie was putrid on his tongue. 

“I’m not stupid, Wally, something you _usually_ remember. You haven’t been yourself for weeks. I already told you I know something’s up. The paranoia, the rage that’s more than your usual hot temper, the - the bouts of violence! If this was who you were, I wouldn’t have married you.” 

Fear made way for a slow brewing anger, which wasn’t necessarily wise when Linda was citing his recent rage. He couldn’t stop it, though. “Bouts of--I haven’t been violent! The sink was an _accident!_ ”

“I know that.” She was still calm. Too calm, for the way she pulled in a slow breath. Linda was keeping herself calm the way Wally couldn’t. “Except you nearly _killed someone_ today. Was that an accident, too?”

He couldn’t think on the spot like this. Wally’s brain never worked slowly, but he felt like his powers were slipping outside of his grip again. “I--no. Yes? I mean. He was a bad guy!” He’d been inside his head, and not only had Psimon seen what he’d been sifting dirt over for weeks, he’d yanked it up to the surface to bury him with it. 

Linda wasn’t close to finished. “And what if you have an ‘accident’ towards me? Or Irey or Jai?” Evenly as she’d said it, it felt like an accusation, one that slapped him across the face hard enough to knock the wind out of him. 

“I am _not_ my father,” he snapped out, anger cranking up another notch because what she’d said echoed too close to what he was terrified of, and Wally was tired of terror. He didn’t want to be that. He clung to Iris’s reassurance, thin as it felt to him. He would _never_ be that towards his kids. He started pacing again, antsiness forcing him to move. He couldn’t leave now - he couldn’t run, that would just bring about more questions. 

“No, you’re not,” she agreed. “You’re also not _yourself_ , either. At first I thought it was because of what happened to Jai, but this...it’s more than that. Wally, none of this is like you!” She threw her hand in the air in frustration. “And it’s all been since _then_. You can’t tell me that nothing happened! If you need help or therapy or...I don’t know! I don’t even know what to suggest you try because you haven’t told me a _single_ thing. You weren’t even this bad that time you didn’t tell me you were dying!” 

He turned on his heel and shouted, “What the hell do you want me to say?!”

“I just want you to be honest with me about what’s going on with you!”

“Honesty?” he spat, and nothing about this should have enraged him like this, she was right about his anger, but it was the same as their fight the other night. Once it started bubbling he couldn’t think to shut it down. “You want _honesty_? What, you want me to tell you how Hunter tried to _help_ me this time? How he wrapped his hand around _our child’s_ neck and threatened to _murder_ him in front of me?!” He was shouting, but the words were distant from him. They spilled out in a vicious torrent. “Or how badly he beat me, how he _tortured_ me a bit, how he snapped my arm in two supposedly for _my own_ benefit?! Or maybe you want to hear about how he fucking cut me off from my powers, held me down, and _raped me_ for _my own fucking good!_ Is that what you want to fucking know?!” 

Linda’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “He did _what_?” 

A beat passed.

Horror flooded through him, pulling him under the flow as he realised what he’d just said. It had been screamed into the room before he even realized what he said, before he could stop himself. He shook his head. “No.” God, no; how could he have been so stupid? “No, I mean-- _no!_ He…” _didn’t_ , Wally wanted to say, but the word wouldn’t come out. “ _God_ ,” he whispered, shaking all over as it hit him again. His voice shook, too, and he brought his fist up to cover his mouth. A sharp desire to run overwhelmed him, but Wally couldn’t move. He lowered his eyes to meet Linda’s gaze, still wide with shock. “God, no. He…I...Linda, it’s not...”

"Hunter _raped_ you?"

The fight in him had disappeared completely, replaced with mind-numbing terror. He wanted to say no, wanted to deny and walk it back, but denying it felt impossible. He shook his head anyway, but what came out was a tiny, barely audible, " _Yes_." The strangled admission set tears leaking again. It wasn’t even worth the effort to try and stop them from coming. “He...he raped me,” he repeated blankly, the words twisting something painfully inside him. "He...h-he…"

His legs wobbled, and he collapsed onto the couch across the room before they gave out completely. Breath hitching, he swallowed down the sob that threatened to burst out. "I'm sorry," he managed instead, even if his voice was small, fighting through the tightness in his chest. All he could do lately was apologise because, "You're r-right. I know I...I haven't been my-myself. I'm trying. I _am_ ; I promise. I'm _sorry_. I don't want to…to be like this. I _gave_ it time. I should be _better!_ " No, not better. That was Hunter's word. Wally needed to be _better_ ; Hunter was making him _better_. ‘Past this,’ was what he needed to remember to say. Wally needed to be past this. "I'm sorry." 

Linda was still reeling, and she dropped down on the couch next to him. He couldn't look at her. Arms wrapped tight around him, and Wally stiffened, heart beating up into his throat, but couldn't bring himself to pull away. "God, Wally," she said. "No, that's not... You don’t need to apologise. You didn’t--" He cut her off without realising, a new thought popping into his head as he tried to get the explanation out.

"And then the sink kept _dripping_ like that...that stupid _pipe_ that was...was in that godforsaken room. Drip after fucking drip, over and over and _over_ again, driving me _insane_. I just wanted to turn it off." It felt like an excuse because no matter the reason, he'd lost control of himself in a scary way. 

A hand on his cheek, and Linda turned his head to look at her. " _I'm_ sorry," she said. Her apology caught him off guard. "I'm sorry Hunter... _God_!" It wasn’t often he saw his wife at a loss for words, but the stunned look in her eye reflected in the silent way her jaw opened, searching for any word of comfort to grasp on to.

Wally jerked his head back away and barked out a bitter laugh. "Yeah," he half whispered. "That was all Barry had to say, too." It shouldn’t have been that caustic. There had been soft comforting arms and whispered reassurances that he’d appreciated at the time, clinging on to his uncle in the aftermath of everything. Now, he couldn’t think of that moment without cringing, without bile building up in the back of his throat. 

Linda swallowed and shook her head in response to a question that didn’t exist. "...Barry knows?" It was almost hopeful. Wally knew - he _knew_ \- what she was thinking: what she was hoping for, with that. That he hadn’t been going through “this” alone. That he had _support_. 

He knew he’d disappoint her there, too.

His voice was barely a breath as the words slipped out, head bobbing up and down in a lame attempt at a nod. "He saw." And then, to clarify: “After." He wanted to rip the feeling of Hunter consuming him out from underneath his skin. 

Linda’s hope disappeared then. Her eyes saddened as she connected the dots and asked, "Is that why you were fighting?" 

Wally could only nod. 

A desperate need to explain, to prove something to her that he didn’t quite know flared up all at once, and everything else came out in a babble, green eyes begging her to just please understand. "I stopped him, though. _Me_. I--my powers barely worked, especially after I got Jai away; I couldn't--I didn't even realise what he was going to do until after he pulled my jeans--I couldn't...couldn't fight him; I _tried_ , Linda. I did. I didn't want--I just lost; that happens, right? But he finished and…and didn't let me go. I tried to--the pipe, but I _still_ couldn't…when he came back, the...the second time. I didn't think it could feel _worse_ \--I stopped him. I _stopped_ him."

What Linda focused on was: "The _second_ time?" The words were strangled by disbelief and horror, and it hit him what he'd admitted - what not even Barry knew. The next second had him over the toilet, throwing up everything in his stomach. Linda called frantically after him from the other room. He flushed and collapsed onto the tile, leaning his back against the cool glass of the shower as he pulled his knees up and dropped his head into his hands.

"I thought you'd run off." Relief was evident in her voice. Linda's bare feet were nearly silent walking over. She dropped down onto her knees next to him. A hand on his arm, then, and he flinched away. Then immediately cursed himself. Linda didn’t comment, thankfully, only pulled her arm back in. She didn’t say anything at all, still; she just waited. Wally didn’t know if that was better or worse than what he’d built up in his mind. He didn’t know what he’d built up in his mind, but even now his stomach was fighting to expunge itself again, twisted into a knot around his neck because he was the dumbass who’d gone and blurted out the last thing Linda needed to know.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again because he didn’t know what else to say. What else was there to say?

“No, baby,” she said softly. “Please stop apologising.” 

A glance up, and she was still watching him, eyes tender and nonjudgmental. Wally didn’t know how to react to that. He needed anger. _Disappointment_. Logically, he knew Linda wasn’t like that - like she’d said to him earlier, he wouldn’t have married her if she was - but the softness, the...the pity from her, from Barry...he needed disappointment from _someone_ other than himself. 

He tilted his head away from her, burying his face into one hand. “How can you even...even look at me?” he choked out into his palm. There was a good chance his face would never be dry again. 

“What?” the frown was evident in her voice, but she was still soft as she asked, “Where’s your head at, Wally?” The only thing that betrayed how she was feeling was the faint quiver to her words, the barest line with which to recognise anger she was doing a good job holding back.

He didn’t know if he was answering her or continuing his thought, but it amounted to the same response. Wally squeezed his eyes shut, jaw quivering as he forced out the truth no one wanted to be honest about. _‘You’re not pathetic,’_ Barry had said sincerely to his flippant line, but Wally knew that was a lie his uncle had told him to feel better about himself. Because the truth was: “I’m a failure.”

He didn’t need to look to know Linda was opening her mouth to reply - to fill him with more comforting lies. 

He started again before sound escaped her mouth, croaking out, “I _am_. A f-fucking failure of a...a superhero,” he broke off with a sob, shoulders shaking as badly as his voice quivered and stumbled over each word, “f-failure of a p-parent. F-failure of a-a _man_. Y-you shouldn’t _want_ to!” He’d fucked up badly, both then and after. Why wouldn’t she just admit it to his face? Five minutes ago, she’d still been mad at him, and Wally deserved it. He’d fucked _up_. 

“Hey, no. _No_. Jai is safe and _alive_ because of _you_. He’s not hurt because of _you_.”

“He was only in _danger_ because of me!” he shouted, turning to glare at Linda through burning wet eyes. She was even more unbothered than before. The calm response crawled at his skin.

“He was in danger because of _Hunter_ ,” she said evenly. The undercurrent of anger drifted higher. “You protected him, like you always have and always _will_. And everything else that happened...how Hunter hurt you...that is _not your fault_.”

“Don’t say that,” he begged. Wally shook his head, screaming on the inside he pulled at his hair. “I _know_ that already.” It wasn’t anger threatening to bubble up this time, but a heavy weight trying to crush him, to squeeze every drop of water from his eyes. “It’s not my fault because I did everything I could, right? I did everything I _could_ , Linda, but it wasn’t _enough_. I- _I_ wasn’t enough; I couldn’t…” Wally broke down, loud cries wracking through him. “I’m not...not helpless,” he squeezed out between sobs. “I’m _not._ ” 

“No, Wally.” Her voice was barely audible through the loud noises he couldn’t hold back. “No, baby, you’re not.”

Harder to hold on to when he still lived with the remnants of that touch on his skin, lingering phantoms stirred up by Psimon. “It was like it w-was...was _happening_ again,” he kept on, “and I couldn’t stop it. He g-got in my head, and...and l- _laughed_ about it, m-made me relive it and…,” he broke off again. 

"I'm not tracking; catch me up to what we're talking about now?"

"Just now," he snapped out. "Earlier! Psimon, with his fucking psychic...I wanted to kill him.” Wally dragged himself back up to his feet and over to the counter. His shoulders shook as he splashed water over his face. Both hands planted on the counter, and he stopped, staring at his face in the mirror. He looked hollow, eyes red and face splotchy. "It's not him I want to kill." The fire had drained out of him entirely. Emptiness filled his chest, and he hung his head low, trying not to start crying again. Humiliation stung sharply at him, made worse when Linda joined him, lacing their fingers together on the countertop. 

"Well, I do," she said. He squeezed her hand. "He _laughed_? God. You should go back in time and beat him again." Now Wally laughed. 

"Tempting." His smile was weak, barely existent. "But you know I don't mess with the-the timeline." His voice faded out, hitching over 'timeline'. That’s what had started this whole thing off: Hunter begging him to do the one thing Wally absolutely could not. Wally had only ever wanted to help him, but that... He'd gotten his children back that way, and that had been Hunter fucking with the timestream, but it had worked out. Maybe he should've. Maybe everything would've been better if he'd just... 

A spark of realisation lit up in Linda's eyes. "You made the right choice, Wally. Hunter...he's not sane anymore."

"He _was_ then. He was just...desperate, Linda. Maybe if I had…" He was shaking again, too slow to call vibration, every part of him left drained in a way too reminiscent of that fucking basement room. 

_'You'll thank me for this one day,'_ echoed through him. Wally couldn't stop himself from flinching at the memory. 

"Why would he do this to me?" he asked brokenly. Tears leaked down his face again. Wally gave up trying to fight it. The breakdown had been building for weeks; he let it wash over him, finally, and all his hurt and confusion spilled out of him at once as he gave himself over to the wracking sobs once more. " _Why_? He still thinks we're...thinks we're _friends_. Why would he…why does he hate me this much? Linda?" He looked at her, desperation peeling out of him with each word, eyes begging for answers. She looked struck, eyes pained and lips taut as her hand stroked reassuringly over his, but Linda didn't have what he needed.

Wally didn't know what he needed. 

"Why would he do this?" he repeated. Hunter had broken something inside of him that could never be fixed. He hadn’t made him better. He’d ruined him. "Why would he _do_ this?"

Linda looked almost as lost as he felt as she wrapped her arms loosely around him. "I don't know, baby," she said softly. He barely heard it over his desperation, words caught on a loop as, like his tears, they poured endlessly out of him: _Why? Why? Why?_ until his throat hurt. _Why couldn’t Hunter leave him alone? Why would this help him? Why would Hunter_ do this _to him?_ Linda pulled him away from the sink, out of the bathroom, and he went easily, too exhausted to protest. Too caught up in the maelstrom of pain tearing at him to process where they were going.

“Hey,” a hand on his cheek, and he caught her face through blurry eyes. The smile she gave him was as wet as his face, her voice soothing like he was one of the kids, even as it shook slightly. He leaned into it. “Let’s sleep on it, okay?” A brief nod. It didn’t matter that it was early, still. Midday. He climbed into the bed, buried into her, still crying (he would never stop) when she slipped in next to him. “You’re gonna get through this, okay?” she reassured him, brushing a hand over his hair. “We’re gonna get through this.”

Somehow, coming from Linda, he could almost believe it.


	6. Chapter 6

VI.

"A billionaire, a reporter, and a house husband walk into a bar."

"It's a cafe," Bruce corrected immediately. 

Wally scowled. "It's a _joke_."

Clark sighed, regarding them both with a fond sort of exasperation. "It's not important,” he said lightly, giving them pointed looks. There was a thin, barely perceptible layer of concern over his face as Wally slipped into the empty chair at the table. He was late, he knew - not too late; just a minute, though that was always enough to cause anyone who knew him concern - but nerves had been working overtime all day, and he probably looked like shit given he’d thrown up twice this morning from panic. 

Wally didn’t know if things were getting better or worse.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, smiling thinly at the two of them. The cafe was a small place in Coast City he’d learned about from Hal. Always empty, always private. Very little chance of anyone overhearing anything they shouldn’t. A good place to meet out of costume because Wally didn’t want to see Batman and Superman. Bruce, he could handle. Clark, he could definitely handle.

Maybe he should have taken up Barry’s offer to come with.

Or Linda’s.

A goddamn superhero didn’t need to be chaperoned by his wife or uncle to meet with friends.

“How’ve you been?” Clark asked. There were layers to that question, if the way Bruce’s eyes flicked between them meant anything. Wally glanced away and cleared his throat. 

“I’ve been...yeah, I’ve been okay.” _Okay_ was the best he could manage. _Good_ was a lie they’d both ping onto if he tried it, if he could even manage to force the word onto his tongue. Even then, Bruce made a noise in the back of his throat that was simultaneously disapproving and disbelieving. Wally’s jaw twitched. 

“Dick told us about your... _outing_.” It had been two weeks since then, and Wally had more or less buried himself away from the world. Away from the Titans, the Justice League, the _Flash_. Emergencies only, and there hadn’t been one. The benefit of that was he’d been able to brush Psimon under the rug. Until now.

“Dick needs to learn to keep his mouth shut,” he snapped back. “Psimon got what he deserved, not that it’s your business.” _Wally_ needed to learn to keep his mouth shut. It was still a constant struggle to fight down the irritation, the flashes of irrational rage that kept springing up inside of him. 

It didn’t help that Bruce was somehow more insufferable when he wasn’t getting angry. “He’s still in the ICU.”

“ _Good._ ” That was too vicious - too satisfied. He busied himself with the menu so he didn’t have to see the concern on both their faces or the silent conversation they were having with their eyes. 

“You usually keep better control over yourself. What you did is unacceptable,” Bruce started again, and Wally had enough. He slammed the menu down onto the table, cutting him off before another word could pass his lips. The silence stretched out around him for years and an instant; the weight of the anger and disapproval passing back and forth between them amplified a thousand times over. 

“If the next words out of your mouth are in any way related to the idea of suspending me, I will punch you in the face, so help me God.”

“Wally,” Clark chided, and the sting of his disapproval landed in a way Bruce’s never could. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to a thousand, then another thousand when he realised how fast he’d sped up, and then he released it. 

This was exactly why he’d invited _Clark_ along to chaperone. Bruce could wind him up on a good day, and his good days were few and far between right now.

Wally couldn’t say he was _on edge_ when on edge was his whole existence. “Sorry,” he apologised, more to Clark than to Bruce. To Bruce, he said, “Don’t talk down to me. I can take responsibility for myself.” The dark look added that he had. The break he’d taken hadn’t been for fun. It hadn’t been easy, either. Bruce grunted his disagreement, but let the point stand. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Clark redirected the conversation right back around to where it needed to go. Wally nodded. Right. He had asked them both here himself for this meeting. 

Opening his mouth to reply, he froze, voice stuck in his throat. Wally swallowed, glanced away as reality sank in. Bile was building in the back of his throat again, but he refused to throw up again today. He could handle one short conversation. It was just a question. 

A fine tremor started up in his shoulders. It was too fast for Bruce’s perception, but behind his glasses, Clark’s eyes caught the movement. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” he said immediately, a lie that he corrected right away with, “No, actually,” and a too bitter laugh. He dropped his face into his hands. This was hard – harder than he’d thought it would be when he’d let Linda talk him into it. He wasn’t going to cry again. It was one thing to have a breakdown at home – to have a week of continuous breakdowns (to have over a month of an extended, spiralling breakdown unravelling him stitch by stitch). He couldn’t do that right now, though. Not here. Not with them.

They wouldn’t judge him, but Wally would judge himself.

“Sorry,” he gasped lightly, half a minute and an eternity later. “I’m sorry, I just – need a second.” His eyes stayed dry, and he steeled himself to look at them both. Clark was all comfort and solidarity – a steady, calming presence that reassured him he could do anything. He could have this conversation.

He should’ve let Barry come.

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat again. And then, “Sorry, I needed to, uh...to ask you for a favour. Bruce. A, uh...a... _personal_...one.”

It felt like years before Bruce answered, clipped and measured in a way that screamed how unhappy he still was with Wally. “What is it you need?” 

He grimaced. The words sat on his tongue, desperate to come out, but locking it down all the same, refusing to budge. He shifted in his seat and tugged at the collar of his t-shirt, doing his best to tune out the sharp crackles of energy thrumming underneath his skin, prodding him to run. 

“I, uh...I need a,” Wally looked at Clark. His hands sat on the table, one resting on top of the other as he watched him back, trying to figure out what was wrong. The temptation to reach out with his own, to grab onto one of Clark’s hands, suddenly overwhelmed him.

Clark would be okay with it. He had before, years ago when Wally was still Kid Flash – when he’d been new to this and excited (he was always still excited, or at least he had been before…) – when he’d gotten hurt (impaled on a piece of rebar). He didn’t even know if Clark remembered that or not. 

He could use something tangible to ground himself.

No. Wally wasn’t a child. Not anymore. He didn’t need to hold Superman’s hand to ask Bruce one stupid, meaningless question. He sucked it up and spat it out.

“I’m looking for a therapist,” he finally forced out. “Like. A good one. Not like the guy I had a few years ago. Someone...trustworthy. Who can deal with all the...stuff, you know,” he waved his hand to indicate. 

Bruce actually looked surprised. “Of course,” he answered immediately, the earlier derision twisting into something significantly more approving. “I might know some I can recommend for you. I’m assuming location isn’t a factor.”

Wally shook his head weakly. “Thanks. No. But, uh...I need...someone who like...specialises in…a particular...area? Ideally.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed as he examined him, piercing in a way that screamed Batman. His words, though, were gentle. “What area?”

Wally shook his head. Most of Linda’s ideas were good. This one...he struggled to accept this one was going to go well. “Look,” he tried again. “This is...it’s really...personal,” he repeated again. Clark’s hand still sat right there on the table in front of him. Wally let himself grab it, wrap his fingers around the sturdy alien palm and squeeze once. Clark squeezed back, was kind enough to let him have that. Wally swallowed gravel, his throat was so dry, and pulled his hand back, let it fall into his lap, clasped his fingers together. Stared at them distantly, like they were so far away he could barely see them. Like they belonged to someone else, someone stronger; someone who this hadn’t happened to. 

“What area?” Bruce repeated patiently. The words broke through the fog over his brain.

Wally bit his lip, tasted blood for a split second, and finally managed, “Uh...dealing with...assault. Sexual...assault.” It helped to keep it clinical. Felt less personal phrased like that, like ‘assault’, which was a crime, and not _rape_ , which was...

Clark gasped slightly, shock and concern intermingling. “Did something happen to Linda?” he asked, all well-intentioned, and Wally wanted to laugh as much as that made him want to cry. Linda. Of course. He didn’t even conceive that it was for _him_ ; it was so outside the realm of possibility that this would happen to Wally.

Bruce said, “ _Clark_ ,” very pointedly, eyes still pinned on Wally. He felt like Bruce was staring through him, dismantling him with a look. “You don’t mean for Linda, do you?” 

He nodded, furiously blinking back the water trying to gather in his eyes. “I mean,” and his voice was barely audible as he qualified, unable to look up, to meet the concerned and shocked looks on their faces, to see the pity as they processed what he was saying, “me _._ I need someone who, uh...helps...male...” He lost his voice before the word victims could come out.

Wally didn’t want to know what they would say to that, so he didn’t give them a chance to respond. “I recognise...that I may not be...dealing well with...some things that have happened lately.” _Some things_ was an understatement, especially in light of what he’d just said. _Some things_ was the biggest understatement he could conceive of. Wally squeezed his hands together, wishing he hadn’t let go of Clark’s. “But I don’t need your...your platitudes or...pity or anything. I’m...working on it. Okay?” 

Clark’s eyes were wide and a little sad. He opened his mouth to reply.

“I’ll have to look,” Bruce said, and his voice was as even and measured as always as he cut in smoothly. It was reassuring in its own way, the way nothing phased him. “But I’m sure I can have a name for you tomorrow.” Wally wished everyone could stay that unbothered talking to him. 

“I can maybe help with that, actually.” They both looked at Clark in tandem. Clark offered up an awkward, slightly strained smile. “Lois and I did a piece last year on a...relevant topic. We interviewed several lead psychologists.” 

“Yeah, but…” Wally trailed off for a second. “Can I talk about,” he waved his hand between them, and let the words tumble out of his mouth, tangling and weaving together into a jumble, “this? I can’t...I can’t do therapy and not...it didn’t matter before, not really. I don’t care about secrets, only what keeps my family safe, except…the people who want to hurt them...” He trailed off, choked up for just a moment. Everyone who cared to hurt them already _knew_. Years, he’d gone with his identity open, and he’d tried to fix that to stop this. It hadn’t worked. No one else would go after them like this. There was no reason for him to care anymore, not when it didn’t matter. “But Barry. Now that Barry’s back...he does. He cares, way more than I ever can, and I would keep that for him, but I won’t just...I can’t lie about this.”

Bruce nodded. “Send them to me. I can vet them,” he turned back to Wally, eyes to eyes and too intense to look away as he added, “but I don’t think Barry values his secrets over your wellbeing, Wally.”

Wally shrugged half-heartedly, turning his head when the weight of Bruce’s stare grew to be too much. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “That was all I needed.” A pause, then he added, “I know neither of you will say anything.” 

“No, of course not,” Clark was quick to assure. A hand landed on his shoulder, firmly reassuring, and Wally, who had not been paying attention, couldn’t stop himself from flinching away. Clark buried the frown, but slowly pulled his hand back all the same. “And you know if you need anything – anything at all – just ask.” He’d said no platitudes, but coming from Clark, it never felt that way. The Superman effect. Clark was just that sincere. Wally almost even appreciated it.

“Don’t know what you think you could do,” he muttered bitterly, anger beginning to slowly churn in the bottom of his stomach. “It happened. That’s not going to change.” He _could_ change it, he knew, and that was a tempting thought, to go back, but he would also change nothing at all. He would still remember it if he changed it himself. He would remember, and he would know he lost. Hunter had taken so fucking much from him; he couldn’t take his fucking principles, too. “And I mean. He’s in prison. _Again_. For however fucking long that lasts this time. So it’s all taken care of. I took care of...everything. Myself. So. I said no pity. I’m fucking _great_. The _only_ thing I need is what I just _asked_ for.”

He didn’t know why he’d done this. A mountain of regret pierced through him in an instant, cutting his air off. Bruce and Clark? What the hell had he been thinking? They weren’t really understanding. Bruce would’ve seen it coming, probably. He would’ve known what to expect and prepared to stop it. Even then, at least he was human. At least he could be _hurt._ Clark...this kind of thing would never happen to Superman. It was completely inconceivable. 

It was completely inconceivable that it had happened to _him_.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, pushing himself up to his feet. Still slow – too slow. He couldn’t quite get his powers to listen to him, to listen to the voice inside of his head screaming to go, run, leave now because it was already too late. The words were tight with brewing tears, and if he cried about this one more time, he was going to scream. “God, just...forget it. Forget about this conversation. _Please_.” Too desperate, of course, because he couldn’t get anything right at the moment. “I shouldn’t have...This was a mistake.”

Surprise blossomed on Clark’s face in slow motion, but Bruce kept as impassive as always. Wally forced himself a step back, and then he took another, and then, finally, lightning sparked inside of him, and he was gone.

“How’d it go?” Linda asked when he got home. He brushed her off without a word, and stepped back into the shower. 

He shouldn’t have been grateful that he only threw up one more time that day.

He _was_ grateful when he woke up the next morning to an encrypted email in his inbox: not a list of names like he’d expected, but rather one name, with an appointment time and place. _Already paid for_ , the message read. _Don’t waste my money._

Even with tears in his eyes, Wally couldn’t help but crack a smile.


End file.
